Here's a ceremonial bowl I just got back. I'm pretty sure I'll be re-glazing a few spots, to see if I can highlight a few areas better. I've never used this clay, so I'm very happy with the overall results.

This is on Russian River or Red, clay. It's heavy in iron and fires pretty red.

I have access to an extruder, but I like to torture myself, so I rolled all the coils. I'm not sure what's more tedious, rolling the coils, or scoring and blending them.

For glazing, I coated the outside with matte black and wiped it off.
I took white, red, black, and yellow underglaze, and dumped some of each into individual containers, and let them dry. I used the dry pieces of glaze like chalk, to apply it. I've never tried glazing like this, just thought it would look primitive.

Here's how it turned out.

The red and white are "non-existent," so these are the spots I'll be re-glazing. For these spots, I'm going to lightly paint the underglaze on, then rub some of it off with my fingertips. From my experience with other colored clays with lots of iron, the clay should still bust through the glaze. I'm keepin' my fingers crossed.

Always great hearing from you guys, thanks for stopping by!
Here's the bowl, re-glazed before firing with my ceremonial coil pot, partially glazed.

Ceremonial pot with full glaze, before glaze firing.

My mold making disaster. This was easily preventable, but I'll take you through my learning process in another post. In the meantime, I'll be putting my Maori Warrior back together and re-sculpting my PNG Birdman a little more mold friendly.
Good times!!!

I really love the hand built pieces, very studio potter/old school. also remember me telling you about traditional Me
lanesian pottery from Fiji, Lapita pottery, heres some info if you want to check it out
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lapita_people

If it was an undercut the broke the head off you can just carve your mold to remove some plaster so your next cast will be fine. That's a good looking tiki. You are making really fun tikis and bowls. Wendy
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Hi Dawn and Wendy,
Thanks for stopping by!
Dawn, I remember you telling me about the Lapita pottery. I'm actually working on a New Caledonia inspired piece, and, while doing my research, found that NC was a spot where some of the Lapita pottery was found, dating to something crazy, like 3,000 to 5,000 BC. Thanks for the reminder and link.

Wendy, I tried loosening it with a hammer, haha, and that's how I broke it. There's pieces of plaster stuck to the side of the head and I've been too busy/lazy to chisel them off. Is there something that will breakdown the plaster, but not effect the bisque ware? I'm guessing this happened because I didn't use mold soap.

So, last week I started this New Caledonia inspired piece from one of my oceanic art books. I want to make a fountain, with water spouting into a bowl, that I'll throw on the wheel or build with coils. Slabs are built around a UPS triangular box, for the main form, that stands about 22-23," before drying. The back panels will just have some design carvings. If I finish carving tomorrow, I'll try and post some pics.

Next, I started my piece for the Tonga Hut's 55th anniversary party. It's wheel thrown and carved. It dried without cracking, so hopefully it'll come out of the bisque firing uscathed.

Mold soap is the only way to go. So sorry. But if you use the mold where some broke off you can hand carve that area to fix it if you make your cast thick enough. I always cast them thick to leave wiggle room for manipulation. If you can get a large chunk loose from the bisque with a chisel you can use wood glue to put it back in place on your mold. Go Tiki taught me that and it works.

Thanks GROG, hope all is well with ya!
Wendy, I finally spent the time to get the stuck plaster off, but it's just to save the sculpt. The mold is done, as in trash. No more lazy negligence. Mold soap, mold soap, mold soap. Oh, and starting the project with enough plaster to finish...

Here's a Marquesan poi-pounder decanter I threw on the wheel and carved. The top comes off and will be fit with cork. This is #2, but I'll be making some more. I've never tried throwing this shape, so the walls are a little thick on these first two.

Aloha Friends! Here's a new PNG mask that just came out of the kiln.
It's about a 12" tall and a 8.75" wide. It's on Rod's Bod clay that's loaded with iron, so it pops through the glaze to give it that nice weathered, primitive look.

I'm also happy with how my fountain project is progressing. It got a small crack during glaze firing, but it really doesn't take away from the piece.
Now it's time to finish the coil bowl that the water will spout into and start to build/carve a wooden stand to raise this piece above the bowl.